Pious Kevin Costner Fights a Tiresome `War'

Published 4:00 am, Friday, May 12, 1995

Kevin Costner dips into Mama Gump's chocolate box in "The War," a Mississippi-set drama now out on video that is sticky with homilies and thin on grit. Costner, as a Vietnam veteran scarred by the war, comes home to find an indifferent nation, his house destroyed by termites and his wife (Mare Winningham) redeeming Coca-Cola bottles.

But he'll be dang diddly ding dong if he lets it get him down.

He may live on the wrong side of the tracks, he may not even be able to keep a job as a janitor, but goll darnit, he's got a saying to silver ever' cloud.

In recalling the horrors of war one night on the porch swing, he confides his beliefs to his son, Stu (Elijah Wood): "I think the only thing that truly keeps people safe and happy is love. And in the absence of love, there's nothing in this world worth fightin' fer." Stu and his twin sister, Lidia (Lexi Randall), however, are involved in an ongoing ruckus with the Lipnickis, a brood of inbred bullies who live in a nearby junkyard.

The battle escalates to such a preposterous degree that it is meant to serve as a metaphor for the Vietnam War, to which their father flashes back in his dreams. In addition to war, Kathy McWorter's first screenplay delves with equal zealousness and insipidity into the subjects of racism, poverty, guardian angels, patriotism, heroism, grief, denial . . . whatever. "The War" has enough plot for six movies and more good intentions than Dixie's got cups. There's just no tying them all up, as director Jon Avnet ("Fried Green Tomatoes") finds.